Zeb stands still.

And the bear charges.

Over in the woods Connor cups his hand over Rory’s mouth as they all watch the bear rushing at an unbelievable speed, come to a few feet from Zeb, break away at the last moment and go past him.

‘Holy shit, I didn’t think they could move so fast. How the hell is he standing there so calmly?’ Connor says under his breath.

Zeb turns to face the bear, which is now walking slowly around, keeping him in sight. The bear pauses, staring directly at Zeb, popping its jaws, and then charges again, swerves again when it’s just a couple of feet away, and turns around as it goes past. The bear charges again without any warning and comes to a stop a foot away, black muscle and fury staring directly at Zeb.

Connor can hear the bear barking right in Zeb’s face, the rage and spittle washing over him, yet Zeb stands his ground. He can see Zeb’s lips move, but they’re too far away to hear him. The bear continues looking at Zeb directly for long moments, its muscles bunched, and then it rises on its hind legs, sniffing at Zeb. It nudges Zeb with its nose, smelling him all over, falls back to all fours, walks around him, and then ambles into the woods as noiselessly as it had come.

Connor lets out a long breath he didn’t know he had held and looks around to the others.

Broker, Bear and Chloe are laughing quietly at something.

‘You guys weren’t even watching?’

‘Nothing to see. We knew it wouldn’t be hurt. The bear, I mean.’ Broker chuckles.

Rory rushes towards Zeb excitedly and peppers him with questions about the bear. Connor can see that this bear encounter will be the highlight of the trip for Rory.

‘Mom, Zeb says he wasn’t scared when the bear came so close to him. How cool is that?’

Anne replies, ‘We know, dear. And Zeb can walk on water too.’

Broker’s rumbling laugh echoes in the woods as they make their way back to the campsite, while Bear slips off to warn Bwana and Roger about the black bear.

Over the campfire, Anne looks at Zeb. ‘Have you never been scared?’

Zeb shrugs.

Bear answers for him. ‘Everyone gets scared. Everyone. We used to get shit scared on our missions. Still do sometimes. Zeb is different. He hasn’t…’ He breaks off and yelps when Chloe accidentally pours hot coffee over his hand.

Anne forgets her question as she rushes to pour cold water over the injured extremity and misses the warning glances that pass from Broker to Chloe and Bear.

But Connor doesn’t. Hmm, this needs investigating, he thinks and makes a mental note to ask Cassandra what that was all about.

Chapter 14

‘I got them,’ Connor shouts at Zeb on the phone as they are all driving back the next day, back to the city and urban frenzy.

‘Those emails that incriminate Hardinger? They got sent to my office yesterday and are with our expensive lawyers. I haven’t seen them yet, but my editor says they’re explosive, and hence the discussions with the suits. It’s game on now, baby.’

Over Connor’s excitement, Zeb can hear Lauren’s anxious voice, ‘Now the pressure on you and us will really start.’

‘Let it. This is what I do for a living, and I love it,’ replies Connor impatiently.

‘Zeb, can you guys – Broker, Bear, and Chloe – come over in a day or two? I’d like your opinions on what can be done to deal with the threats and nuisance once the story hits.’

‘Okay.’

Broker calls minutes later. ‘Did you get the Connor invite?’

‘Yup.’

‘Should we get involved?’

‘I am involved because they’re Cassandra’s neighbors.’

‘Then we’re involved, too. And Roger and Bwana say they’d like to help kill weeds in this garden.’

*   *   *

Before departing from the mountains, Broker and Bear met with Bwana and Roger in the woods. Bwana had been his usual subtle self.

‘Pond scum belongs in the pond. Tell Zeb I’ll be happy to help.’

‘Behind me,’ Roger had broken in.

‘When are you planning to meet Connor?’ Broker asks Zeb.

‘Whenever he calls. I don’t have anything on my plate right now.’

As Connor drives, he looks at Cassandra in the mirror.

‘Cass, what’s it that Bear was going to say before Chloe burned his hand? I know she did it deliberately.’

Cassandra looks at him and then away. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

Connor lets the silence build, hoping it will get her talking, but she has nothing further to say.

He smiles, remembering that she lived and worked in Washington and knows how to keep a secret.

Zeb checks into a seedy hotel in Harlem, returns his Jeep, and then visits his apartment in Jackson Heights to check it out. His fingerprint, laid across the bottom of the door and jamb is still there, as is a thin film of dust in a specific pattern across the side.

He steps in, moves to the right, and stands still to feel the sound and smell of his apartment, finds nothing out of the ordinary, and goes to his arms cache. It’s time to redistribute it across the city, considering that he’ll be spending a lot of time in hotels till he sorts out the Holt issue.

He’s always used a network of storage boxes in any city he lives in and already has such a network here, but he wants to supplement it.

It’s late in the evening when he heads back to his hotel after topping up his stores. He’s thinking over ways to get Holt to emerge when Connor calls him and suggests they meet the next day.

*   *   *

‘Wow, this place is bursting at the seams with hard cases,’ Connor jokes, referring to Zeb, Bear, Chloe and Broker at his place.

Connor hands over a sheaf of papers to Zeb. ‘They were delivered here when we got back. The suits have approved publishing, and now it’s down to me to write the mother of all stories.’

The papers were emails between RH and someone named Vince Spadea – several of them over more than a year.

‘RH is the Senator obviously; Spadea was his head of security in Africa at that time, responsible for the security of all Alchemy’s African businesses.’

Zeb reads the emails, passing each page to the others once he’s through with them. In one mail Spadea complains that there isn’t enough labor to staff the mines, to which RH replied, ‘Who said the laborers have to be adults? Pay the natives and get kids, old people, anyone. I don’t care.’

In another email Spadea replied, ‘Boss, we’re going into dangerous territory. We can’t use kids. There’s no more labor to be recruited. We just have to accept reduced output.’

To which RH came back, ‘Fuck that shit. Minerals are at an all-time high. We need labor, and kids can get the rocks out as well as anyone. Let Joop handle it.’

‘Boss, getting Joop in is going wild.’

‘So? We’re in the jungle, in case you forgot. Wild is normal.’

Another thread of mails starts from Spadea.

‘The natives are getting restless. One of the children working in the mines died.’

‘Use Joop. He’ll know what to do.’

‘That’s a last-ditch option. Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I am fucking sure.’

‘Chief, we have to be careful. The company is much more visible because of your public profile; we can’t go around doing shit like this.’

‘Listen, asshole, I pay you to manage security not to be my conscience or my PR agent. Joop knows how to deal with the natives. Let him. You just make sure the work continues.’

Zeb finishes reading all the papers, which contain many more emails in a similar vein, hands them across to the others and sits watching out of the window.

Broker looks at Connor. ‘These are genuine?’

‘All verified, authenticated by some of the best cryptos in the country, guys who analyze IP addresses, that kind of stuff.’

‘Well, hell, we just lost a Senator, then.’